{"id":15341,"date":"2026-02-09T07:19:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/inside-jimmy-lais-20-year-jail-sentence-the-harshest-yet-under-hong-kongs-security-law\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T07:19:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:19:39","slug":"inside-jimmy-lais-20-year-jail-sentence-the-harshest-yet-under-hong-kongs-security-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/inside-jimmy-lais-20-year-jail-sentence-the-harshest-yet-under-hong-kongs-security-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Jimmy Lai\u2019s 20-year jail sentence, the harshest yet under Hong Kong\u2019s security law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HONG KONG, Feb 9 — Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, the harshest penalty doled out so far under a Beijing-imposed national security law.<\/p>\n

The 78-year-old newspaper founder has been behind bars since 2020, and has served time for other criminal convictions.<\/p>\n

Here is how Lai’s penalty works:<\/p>\n

How was the sentence calculated? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lai was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit foreign collusion under the national security law, which comes with a sentencing range of 10 years to life for crimes “of a grave nature”.<\/p>\n

He also faced one count of conspiracy to print seditious publications under a colonial-era law, which has a maximum jail term of two years for first-time offenders.<\/p>\n

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It is up to the judges to decide whether and how these jail terms can overlap.<\/p>\n

The judges said they settled on 20 years’ imprisonment “having stepped back and taking a global view of the total sentence for Lai’s serious and grave criminal conduct”.<\/p>\n

His sentence is by far the harshest handed out under the national security law, surpassing the previous record of 10 years given to legal scholar Benny Tai in 2024.<\/p>\n

Why was the sentence reduced? <\/p>\n

In 2022, Lai was given a jail sentence of five years and nine months after being found guilty of fraud in a contractual dispute.<\/p>\n

Lai was still serving time as of Monday.<\/p>\n

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Judges ruled that two years from the newly delivered sentence will overlap with his existing penalty.<\/p>\n

In effect, Lai will add 18 years to his prison stint.<\/p>\n

Other defendants <\/strong><\/p>\n

Judges also sentenced eight of Lai’s co-defendants on Monday, including six people from Apple Daily’s senior management.<\/p>\n

Top editors Ryan Law, Lam Man-chung and Fung Wai-kong each received 10 years.<\/p>\n

The remaining three – Cheung Kim-hung, Chan Pui-man and Yeung Ching-kee – received shorter sentences as they testified against Lai, with Cheung getting six years and nine months.<\/p>\n

Wayland Chan Tsz-wah and Andy Li, two younger men who pleaded guilty to conspiring with Lai to lobby Western nations, received sentences of up to seven years and three months.<\/p>\n

What’s next? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lai will have 28 calendar days to lodge an appeal, his defence lawyer Robert Pang told AFP — though he declined to say if the tycoon will take that step.<\/p>\n

Authorities say that Lai has been kept in solitary confinement at his own request and that he has received adequate medical care behind bars.<\/p>\n

A homegrown national security law passed in 2024 made it much harder for people jailed for national security crimes to secure early prison release on the grounds of good behaviour.<\/p>\n

If Lai serves out his sentence in full, he will likely be 96 before regaining his freedom. — AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Inside Jimmy Lai’s 20-year jail sentence, the harshest yet under Hong Kong’s security law<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HONG KONG, Feb 9 — Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, the harshest penalty doled out so far under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The 78-year-old newspaper founder has been behind bars since 2020, and has served time for other criminal convictions. Here is how…<\/p>\n

Read More “Inside Jimmy Lai\u2019s 20-year jail sentence, the harshest yet under Hong Kong\u2019s security law”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}